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Trio for guitar, bass guitar, and microtonal keyboard - 3rd mv.


Nick Vuci

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Here's the third and final movement to my trio for guitar, bass, and harmonic series keyboard. Please have a listen and leave any comments, feedback, and criticism as all the feedback I've received has been very valuable so far. Above all, I hope you enjoy it.

Edited by Nikola Canada
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Well, apart from the fact that is nice to listen to this, it supports what I was trying to say in the other part.

What a I hear here is a progression of chords with a slap bass and the guitar, and above, the keyboard playing to be in tune, near it, up and down... Like a constant ornament.

But a microtonal piece is (I think) something very different. If you treat the keyboard as a polyphonic instrument (playing chords: microtonal chords) the result would be totally different.

On the other hand I have no idea about how to build microtonal chords and what relation would have among them, if there is some sort of functional relationship or not. I know a litlle bit atonality and dodecaphony and (in spite what most people think) there are harmonic relationships, different from what we know in tonal music. I suppose microtonalism can have all kind of relation between chords. In other words, if a valid theory on harmony hasn't been describe yet for atonalism, for microtonalism can be the same.

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@Luis Hernández Thanks for the quick response!

Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure what you mean by saying that a microtonal piece is "something different." Microtonalism simply means using intervals smaller than the standard semitone of 100 cents. In the second piece I did use the keyboard to create chords, and I switched back and forth between the keyboard and the guitar for playing the chords against the melody, and when the keyboard played chords or the melody I used microtonal inflections to emphasize existing chromatic instances. Here I simply use the 32-note scale in a type of "perpetual motion" melody against the guitar and bass playing chords, as you mentioned, yet it is still a "microtonal" melody and uses all 32-notes.

For reference, I am using the 32-note scale of the harmonic series, so all of the chord relations that exist in standard western music also exist in this system. There are also many more, but all the standard ones do exist. There is, however, no standard theory of harmony for any microtonal system (harmonic systems that include non-standard chords are often called "xenharmonic").

Regardless, thank you for listening and leaving feedback! It is much appreciated. 

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I like this one the best of all of them. The microtones compliment the base of the music this time instead of sounding arbitrary. Something's always happening and hemiolas are always welcome after a little bit. Very nice.

1 hour ago, Nikola Canada said:

Well, there's no "standard" theory.

Only kind of true. We base microtones on the same way we look at pitch class sets in 12-tone music or serialism, but extending the dimensions by 2.66 repeating. Essentially, you're working with the original sixth-dimensional split between twelve tone music and multiplying each dimension by 2.66 repeating to work with proper microtonal shifts. I don't know how useful it is, but that's how we view it.

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I understand what you are saying (that set theory can be applied to virtually any musical system), but what I meant is that there is no real "common practice" within the world of microtonal composers as we have in standard western music. Especially when you get to systems that include features such as non-octave repeating scales and prime-based limits.

Thank you for listening and enjoying! Your reviews are always very appreciated.

Edited by Nikola Canada
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